The potential of oligonucleotides as modulators of gene expression is currently under intense investigation. Most of the efforts are focused on inhibiting the expression of targeted genes such as oncogenes or viral genes. The oligonucleotides are directed either against RNA (antisense oligonucleotides) (M. Ghosh and J. Cohen, Prog. Nucleic Acid Res. Mol. Biol. 42, 79 (1992); L. Neckers et al., Crit. Rev. Oncog. 3, 175 (1992)) or against DNA where they form triplex structures inhibiting transcription by RNA polymerase II (J. Hanvey et al., Science 258, 1481 (1992); W. McShan et al., J. Biol. Chem. 267, 5712 (1992); M. Grigoriev et al., J. Biol. Chem. 267, 3389 (1992); G. Duval-Valentin et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 89, 504 (1992)). To achieve a desired effect the oligonucleotides must promote a decay of the preexisting, undesirable protein by effectively preventing its formation de novo. Such techniques are not useful where the object is to upregulate production of the native protein. Yet, in cases where the expression of a gene is downregulated because of mutations therein, a means for upregulating gene expression through antisense technology would be extremely useful.